This research explores the impact of various forms of capital flows on economic growth and development for a group of 120 countries from 1980-2007. Traditional growth literature as well as the textbook theory of economic growth looks at capital flows as playing a vital role in fostering economic growth and development. The textbook theories, as well as the existing approaches to study the capital flows and economic development connection, use growth and development interchangeably. This analysis, examines the consequences of different capital flows on growth and development separately because the determinants of growth may not be the same as the determinants of development. This distinction becomes even more applicable when observing the cases of countries that have experienced economic growth during certain periods but were unable to translate the increase in economic growth to development. To investigate the impact of various forms of capital flows, this dissertation utilizes life expectancy in addition to economic growth, as a measure of development. The results from using the two measures show that capital flows have dissimilar impact on life expectancy as well as economic growth. The central proposition of this dissertation is that not all forms of capital flows are created equal. Furthermore, countries at different levels of development may differ in their absorptive capacity of the capital. Thus, the ability of a country to harness capital for development depends upon its absorptive capacity, presence of domestic resources and the capabilities of national governments. This study therefore not only looks at the role played by various forms of capital flows on growth and development, but also takes into account the role of political performance of national governments that can play an important role in maximizing the efficiency of the investments. To investigate what kinds of flows are beneficial at different levels of development, this analysis further divides the dataset into three samples of developed countries, emerging markets and less developed countries. The results indicate that the impact of different capital flows varies across the three subsamples. By categorizing capital flows into categories of international capital flows, domestic capital, and remittances, this research also finds that the type of investment, as well as the source of investment (foreign vs. domestic), indeed does matter. The analysis suggests that the key to harnessing capital for development lies with capable governments and efficient use of domestic resources. In absence of capable governments, influx of foreign capital flows can manifest itself in ways that are harmful to the progress of developing societies.

Le projet ASTRID, réacteur nucléaire français de 4ème génération refroidi au sodium, est en cours de développement par le CEA. Dans ce projet, le développement de techniques de surveillance est identifié comme un problème majeur pour augmenter la sécurité du réacteur. L'utilisation de techniques de mesure par ultrasons est considérée comme un puissant outil d'inspection en raison de l'opacité du sodium liquide.A l'intérieur d'un circuit de refroidissement, l'hétérogénéité du milieu se produit du fait de l'état d'écoulement complexe, et les effets de cette hétérogénéité sur la propagation des ondes acoustiques ne sont pas négligeables. Ainsi, il est nécessaire d'effectuer des expériences de vérification, sachant que de telles expériences peuvent être des expériences à grande échelle. C'est pourquoi les méthodes de simulation numérique sont essentielles. L'objectif de l'étude de ma thèse est à appliquer la technique numérique des éléments spectraux, qui peut modéliser nos objets d'étude de manière plus précise que les méthodes de simulation plus classiques. Nous étudierons d'abord le potentiel de développement de la thermométrie ultrasonique similaire à celui d'un réacteur rapide refroidi au sodium avec simulation 2D. Un processus aléatoire Gaussien aura appliqué pour générer une fluctuation de la température.Afin d'étudier l'hétérogénéité en 3D et des champs de température plus réalistes dans le milieu, nous effectuerons une seconde étude numérique. Pour représenter l'hétérogénéité du sodium liquide, nous appliquerons un champ de température 4D (3D spatiale et 1D temporelle) calculé par modélisation numérique en dynamique des fluides avec LES réalisée par CEA STMF. / The ASTRID project, a french sodium-cooled nuclear reactor of 4th generation, is currently under development by the french alternative energies and atomic energy center (CEA). In this project, development of monitoring techniques is identified as an important issue to improve the plant safety. The use of ultrasonic measurement techniques is regarded as a powerful inspection tool due to the opacity of liquid sodium. Inside a cooling circuit, heterogeneity of the medium occurs because of a complex flow state, and then the effects of this heterogeneity on acoustic wave propagation are not negligible. Thus, it is necessary to carry out verification experiments, and such kind of experiments using liquid sodium may be large-scale. This is a reason why numerical simulation methods are essential. The objective of the study in the thesis is to apply a 3D spectral-element method, that we will show to be suitable to our targets more accurately than more classical numerical simulation methods.We will first study the development potential of ultrasonic thermometry in a liquid fluctuating sodium environment similar to that present in a sodium-cooled fast reactor with 2D simulation. Gaussian random process will be applied to generate fluctuations of temperature. To investigate 3D heterogeneity and more realistic temperature fields in the medium, in a second part of the thesis we will carry out a numerical study for 3D models of the reactor core. To represent the heterogeneity of liquid sodium, a four-dimensional temperature field (three spatial and one temporal dimension) calculated by computational fluid dynamics based on a large-eddy simulation performed by CEA STMF will be applied.

The importance of environmental analysis in the strategic management process and the effects of economic value drivers on firm or industry performance have been discussed conceptually and empirically by researchers in corporate failure, and in the areas of finance, accounting, strategic management, and the hospitality industry in the past. The belief is that the more systematic and frequent the scanning performed by managers the higher the chances of improving the firm's or industry's performance. The present study is an attempt to identify economic value drivers that impact the casual theme sector of the restaurant industry and to ascertain the degree of the impact during the period 1994-2003. The statistical analysis was based on time series data, using Cross Correlation, Granger Causality, and Multivariate Regression. An exhaustive range of economic value drivers within ten categories were tested: commodity market; foreign currency market; labor market; inflation; stock market; national income and output; interest rate; government revenue, spending, debt, and taxes; money supply; and consumer spending. The unit of analysis was done at the industry level, and an index of operational cash flows of the casual theme sector of the restaurant industry was developed. Economic value drivers within the categories of commodity markets, labor markets, inflation, stock market, national input/output, government revenue/spending/debt/taxes, money markets, and consumer spending indicated co-movements with and causality to the index of operational cash flows per unit in the casual theme restaurant industry. A high variance in the operational cash flows in the casual theme restaurant industry was explained by a set of economic value drivers within commodity markets, inflation, and labor markets. In broad, practical terms, the study intends to support the importance of assessing the economic environment for better performance of the restaurant industry and to provide food service managers with a conceptual model to understand the unanticipated effects on the performance of existing or new strategies. In real terms, the model and set of economic value drivers in the model would help them decide what kinds of action or investment in a firm or industry's weakness should be taken to buffer future operational risks against value drivers within economic environment. / Master of Science

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The US weather enterprise includes academia, the private weather industry, and government-funded forecasting, research, and dissemination agencies. While not an organization in its own right, the enterprise behaves like an organization of organizations. This thesis applies the communicative constitution of organizations, and McPhee and Zaug’s four flows model in particular, to the US weather enterprise. Each organization in the weather enterprise behaves like individual members of an organization would, which extends this theory to a conceptualization of organization that increases innovation, collaboration, and coordination. The weather is a constitutive force which calls the US weather enterprise into being. Finally, CCO is extended to other collaborative, coordinated efforts among the public and private sectors, indicating the possibilities of CCO as an attractive answer to the great organizational questions of the 21st century and beyond. Future research areas are considered, including how the US weather enterprise manages the unexpected and reduces uncertainty organizationally. Also, considerations as to how CCO can be applied to the incident command structure, often called forward during high-impact weather events, will be made.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第19681号 / 工博第4136号 / 新制||工||1638(附属図書館) / 32717 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科機械理工学専攻 / (主査)教授 西脇 眞二, 教授 稲室 隆二, 教授 松原 厚 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

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<p>Fluids conveyed in deformable conduits are often encountered in  microfluidic applications, which makes fluid--structure interactions (FSIs) an unavoidable phenomenon. In particular, experiments reported the existence of FSI instabilities in compliant microchannels at low Reynolds numbers, Re, well below the established values for rigid conduits. This observation has significant implications for new strategies for mixing at the microscale, which might harness FSI instabilities in the absence of  turbulence. In this thesis, we conduct research on the modeling and stability of microscale FSIs. Understanding the steady response, the dynamics and the stability of these FSIs are the three major objectives. This thesis begins with the analysis of the steady-state scalings and the linear stability of a previously derived mathematical model, through which we emphasize the power of reduced modeling in making the FSI problems tractable. Next, we turn to a more realistic problem regarding FSIs in a common configuration of low-Re flows through long, shallow rectangular three-dimensional microchannels. Through a scaling analysis, which takes advantage of the geometric separation of scales, we find that the flow can be simplified under the lubrication approximation, while the wall deforms like a variable-stiffness Winkler foundation at the leading order. Coupling these dominant effects, we obtain a new fitting-parameter-free flow rate--pressure drop relation for a thick-walled microchannel, which rationalizes previous experiments. Then, we derive a one-dimensional (1D) steady model, at both vanishing and finite Re, by coupling the reduced flow and deformation models. To satisfy the displacement constraints along the channel edges, weak tension is introduced to regularize the underlying Winkler-foundation-like mechanism. This model is then made dynamic by introducing flow unsteadiness and the elastic wall's inertia. We conduct a global stability analysis of this system by perturbing the non-flat steady state with infinitesimal perturbations. We identify the existence of globally unstable modes, typically in the weakly inertial flow regime, whose features are consistent with experimental observations. The unstable eigenmodes oscillate at frequencies close to the natural frequency of the wall, suggesting that the instabilities are resonance phenomena. We also capture the transient energy amplification of perturbations through a linear non-normality analysis of the proposed reduced 1D FSI model.</p>